Thoughts on public law, politics and teaching, mostly from an Australian perspective

2007.03.30

The UK Parliament's Joint Committee On Human Rights has changed its mind (an earlier report adopted a wait-and-see litigation-focused approach) and now urges a legislative clarification of the meaning of public authority. Specifically, it urges a separate interpretive provision (not amending the HRA itself) to the effect:

"For the purposes of s. 6(3)(b) of the
Human Rights Act 1998, a function of a public nature includes
a function performed pursuant to a contract or other arrangement
with a public authority which is under a duty to perform the function."

Of course, the pending appeals to the House of Lords may render this moot. But the JCHR seems not to be holding its breath.

2007.03.18

The Supreme Court of Canada upheld s 329 of the Canada Elections Act in R v Bryan 2007 SCC 12 (15 March 2007) by a 5:4 majority and over spirited dissent. Section 329 effectively prohibits publication (in this case, on a website) of election results from eastern provinces until the polls close in the west. According to the majority judgment, "Section 329, by virtue of its objective of
ensuring informational equality among voters, is a reasonable limit on
s. 2(b) of the Charter." According to the minority, "As an excessive response
to an insufficiently proven harm in light of the implementation of staggered
voting hours, the publication ban in s. 329 of the Canada Elections Act
is therefore a violation of s. 2(b) of the Charter that is not
justified under s. 1."

2007.03.08

Overnight the Commons voted in favour of a 100% elected Lords: see news report at The Guardian among other places. An 80% elected Lords was also supported by a majority, but the half-half model was rejected. The questions proposed by the White Paper now go to the Lords who, the Guardian report, are likely to favour a 100% appointed chamber. Is an impasse on the way?

2007.03.06

Last Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada decided Canada (Attorney General) v. Hislop, which upheld in part and invalidated in part the legislation that restricted access to pension benefits for the surviving partner of a same sex relationship. (The legislation in question had amended earlier legislation that was found invalid in 1999.) One interesting point is the discussion of remedies. Just as in the previous week's security certificates case (where the effect of the invalidity was delayed for a year), the Court reasons its way towards a remedy in a way that at present is beyond the pale in Australia (where unlike Canada is there is no explicit constitutional recognition of the rule of law as a constitutional value). The Canadian court openly acknowledges that the 1999 decision changed the law and that it would therefore be inappropriate to grant a remedy in relation to pre-1999 conduct that imposed a burden on government (absent unusual circumstances). Bastarache J disagrees. Although judicial decisions make and remake the common law,

142The same cannot be said for judicial decisions which interpret and apply
the Constitution. The Constitution exists independently of judicial decisions.
Judges do not “make” the Constitution every time they interpret its provisions.
Interpretations of what the Constitution requires may change, but the
underlying rights and freedoms endure. Charter rights are not created
every time that a court expressly overrules or implicitly repudiates a prior
decision or gives “content to broad, but previously undefined, rights,
principles or norms” (LeBel and Rothstein JJ. at para. 99). The rights and
freedoms in the Charter were guaranteed to all Canadians from the moment
the Charter came into force.

143 By justifying the denial of retroactive relief in part on the existence
of a “substantial change in the law”, my colleagues give Charter rights
an uncertain status. I cannot accept an approach that, for remedial purposes,
implies that Charter rights can be here one day and gone the next or,
conversely, that they depend on judicial recognition of “a new or newly
recognized technological or social environment” (para. 99) for their genesis.
Such reasoning represents a watering down of the promise made to all Canadians
when the Charter was enacted. By attaching importance to changing social
conditions, it makes Charter rights dependent on how the majority of
Canadians perceive the claimants’ rights. With respect, I cannot see why
society’s views of Charter claimants — especially in the context of
vulnerable minorities — should be a factor for determining whether a Charter
right was part of the Constitution in 1985, or whether it sprung into
existence later and thereby be a basis for denying retroactive relief.

144I should note that I am not advocating for a view of the Constitution
that says that it is frozen in time. The “living tree” metaphor aptly describes
how through time our Constitution may change to correspond to new realities.
But that does not mean that every time a new constitutional interpretation is
adopted or a previous decision is overturned that the fundamental rights and
freedoms guaranteed in our Charter have changed or that new ones have
been created. There is a difference between changes in constitutional
interpretation and actual constitutional change. Furthermore, the “living tree”
doctrine is a doctrine of “progressive interpretation”(Reference re
Same‑Sex Marriage, [2004] 3 S.C.R. 698, 2004 SCC 79, at paras. 22-23
(emphasis added)), necessary to ensure that our Constitution does not become
rigid and unresponsive to Canadian society. It should not be used as a
justification for denying relief to a particular group of Charter claimants.

The UK law reform and human rights organisation JUSTICE has produced a discussion paper outlining the issues involved in producing a British Bill of Rights (something that influential voices in Labour and the Conservatives have called for), including content (ECHR-plus, not ECHR-minus), amendability, enforcement and the process for reaching agreement on such an instrument. (Hat tip George Williams.)

2007.02.24

I’m feeling a bit cranky. My colleagues and I have just received word that our next professional development day will focus on ways we need to technologize our teaching methods so that we can better facilitate the success of the newest new generation, commonly known as “Millennials.”This latest alien invasion of first-year students, we are told, are teenage battery packs “with wires running through their veins” plugged into video games, MySpace and iPods.Therefore, we better get our collective act together and at the very least hybridize the delivery of knowledge so that we can help them make the grade in the global marketplace.

... one of the reasons I’m cranky today is because most faculty
development workshops I’ve attended assume no knowledge and experience
on the part of those being lectured to about the latest advances in
technology, learning style, and interconnectivity.

Nobody asks us what we already know and do. ...

Another reason I’m cranky today is that I detest these facile characterizations of our students. ...

And I’m cranky because this attempt to equate pedagogy with technology confuses ends with means. ...

...

What our students need is not more of what they come in the door with.
They don’t need more of the same in the same way they got it before.
They need to be confronted with people who talk about ideas that
matter. They need to become people who can confront and talk to other
people about ideas that matter. They need to sit in a room of people
and learn about humanity.

The Supreme Court of Canada has declared the key elements of the security certificate system invalid in Charkaoui v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration). This is the system under which Ministers may declare that a
foreign national or permanent resident may not be admitted to Canada because of security concerns. The person is then detained, subject to limited review rights (the limits include restrictions on disclosure of the information that led to the issuing of the certificate or the decision to detain). The procedures for detention and review differ as between foreign nationals and permanent residents.

Charter violations were found in the failure to provide a fair hearing; failure to provide timely review of detention of foreign nationals. Extended periods of detention do not per se constitute a Charter breach, so long as there are regular opportunities for review of the detention taking into account all relevant factors. The differential treatment of citizens and non-citizens did not constitute a Charter breach, because (at least in the present cases) the detention of non-citizens remained linked to their eventual deportation. The unwritten constitutional principle of the rule of law does not (at least, not in any case yet postulated) provide a basis for review of legislation based on its content.

2007.02.20

Guardian Unlimited Politics reports that the UK government has caved ... not on the substantive question of House of Lords reform canvassed in the White Paper but on how MPs were to vote on the options. The White Paper had (sensibly) proposed an alternative voting system (ie something like the preferential voting familiar to Australian voters) but the opposition seems to have regarded this as a "dangerous constitutional precedent" ... :

The government backed down on controversial plans to use a new voting method for MPs to decide on House of Lords reform.

Jack Straw, the leader of the Commons, told MPs that they would not have to use his preferred method of an alternative vote ballot.

Instead they will use the traditional division system and Labour MPs would get a free vote.

The decision revives the possibility of a stalemate on reform with MPs rejecting all the options as they did in 2003.

Mr Straw had faced criticism when he set out proposals for MPs to list the various options - ranging from a fully elected to a fully appointed second chamber - in order of preference.

Theresa May, his Tory shadow, said that the move was a "victory for common sense".

To carry on with the original plans would have set a "dangerous constitutional precedent", she claimed.

A remedy for payment of ultra vires taxes is available as of constitutional right, rather than under the law of unjust enrichment.

The right to restitution is a matter of fundamental constitutional principle. "The
action for recovery of taxes is firmly grounded, as a public law remedy in a
constitutional principle stemming from democracy’s earliest attempts to circumscribe
government’s power within the rule of law."